Short Story, The Vampire of Godric's Hollow
by PTMaskell
Summary: Halloween 1981, the ancient evil of Godric's Hollow stirs.


Brian couldn't help but wonder how it had come to this, as he stared into the mirror. A reflection he could actually see, but wished to hell he couldn't. The vast, untenable history of the Sanguinus Vampirus, ruling over the cattle from the darkness, feasting from the shadows for millennia untold falling from grace to become the ridicule of the humans. Vampires were the rightful rulers of the night, and their visage a horror to behold.

Brian caught his own eye in his reflection and looked into his soul.

It had been two centuries since that foolhardy prince had exposed our kind to the humans. Why he would ever have let that morsel Stoker get away and live to tell the story is so far beyond any depth of fathoming all of vampire-kind could comprehend. Two hundred years of hiding, scattered to the wind, castles plundered, and over twenty-thousand prostrated and impaled in the first decade by the despised hunter Abraham Van Helsing.

His fame and myth had grown into such wild proportions, that some even believed him to be the fallen angel, Gabriel.

Brian had been born into that war, bred for it. It had been so long since those times, that Brian couldn't even remember his original family. Even his name now, Brian, was just another falsehood. He'd gone once by Hans Sauer, the grim. A description he heartily embraced to this day. He like all of his kind were death omens.

Hans Sauer was sired into immortality as a very small boy, a practice he found out decades later was considered an abomination to their own code. He would never grow old, neither in stature or even in vampire terms. Brian had just celebrated his 10th birthday, when he was in fact well over 20 times that.

The mirror told another story though.

His latest adopted parents he'd let keep their minds for a change. Immortality could only be kept interesting, and worth living if you changed things up every once in a while. Instead of drinking their blood, and keeping them as thralls, he let them keep their free will. But this… costume, might just be the death of them.

Brain gazed upon his powerful, however small vampire body in fury. The humans had adopted even the most sacred celebrations of the Wizarding, and Vampire worlds as a perverse celebration of mockery and gluttony (an excessively common habit among their kind). They'd deflated the customs and solemnity of All Hallows Even into time for children to dress up and intimidate families into giving them candy. But as he'd recently discovered, the parents were in on that too. There was no real threat. And the costumes weren't even scary.

And THIS monstrosity?!

Brian waved his thin, weak fabric black cape resignedly. The ridiculously popped collar, red vest, and frilly cravat, two styles which went out around the time of Bram Stoker's book and the slaughtering of his kinsmen. This would not stand.

By now his two muggle parents were gathered on either side of him, admiring their handiwork.

They looked so happy.

Hans Sauer could feel his rage emanating from within. Soon the whole block would hear it.

John and Susan didn't feel it at first, but the ground beneath them began to tremble.

POP! POP! Two light bulbs burst in the house somewhere unseen, but darkness was beginning to pervade. They gripped their adopted sons shoulders tight in defense. Something was happening, and they wouldn't let their baby boy get hurt.

POP! POP! POP!

The lights in the hallway had burst, the rest of the house was dark!

POP! The last light went out above their heads, and the shaking suddenly stopped.

The ground was calm, but they were not. Every fiber of their being screamed they were in danger. And yet their brave boy hadn't moved an inch. He still stood there, staring at himself in the mirror.

Staring very hard.

Staring so hard his eyes seemed to be reflecting the red of .. something? But there were no streetlights nearby!

He saw they had seen his eyes pulsing with the fires of hell, and the yearning for blood.

They were afraid. They should be. And he liked it that way. Blood was always so much richer when they were afraid. Let's spice it up just a little more.

CRASH! The pressure in the house changed so violently that all the windows exploded outward, covering up the screams inside. In that instant he had ripped each of their throats out and sucked their veins completely dry. Hans had been so thirsty for human blood lately, having survived off butcher's shop blood for so long, it took no time at all to drain them.

All was silent. Their hearts stopped several seconds before their brains died. They didn't even have time to fully realize everything that had happened. They would never know they were only the latest in a very, very long line of families betrayed and devoured by their little Brian. The last they saw were his feet in the little black boots of his vampire outfit calmly walking out of their home.

Out here in Godric's Hollow he was still known as Brian, and Brian was overdue for a Halloween Party with the other children.

The mere idea made his stomach turn. Not just the too-quickly devoured meal. However, there was likely quite the feast to be had there.

Hans stopped. He had made it out to the sidewalk in his reverie. A man was approaching. Someone likely from the party given his elaborate cape and hood. He even had a stick out like he was some sort of wizard.

Hans stopped short after the man paused to peer at him.

Vampires skin was just below room temperature, and their veins only pulsed warm when they were freshly fed, but this man's visage stopped him short.

No vampire had skin so pale, nor face so gaunt. Even a two hundred plus year old vampire knew danger when it was staring him right in the face. Anyone watching would see little 10 year old Brain suddenly gasp and stumble backward into his yard away from a cloaked man walking seemingly aimlessly down the street looking for a house that didn't exist.

Hans saw the spectre of death.

It's definitely time for Brain to disappear.

Hans Sauer scrambled to his feet and fled back into the house. His inborn gift of Vampirism gave him the distinct ability to Transfigure his form to that of something a bit more mobile.

A single bat was not seen flying from a shattered window. By nights end, two sets of parents were found murdered in Godric's Hollow, and two boys went missing.


End file.
